A young military scale modeler at work

AeroMaster 1/48 P-47N pt.I

The subject
The P-47N was the last in the line of Republic’s Thunderbolt fighter aircraft. It was designed as an escort fighter for the B-29 bombers during their raids on the Japanese home islands. For this mission, it needed more fuel capacity. The only place were more fuel could be stored was inside the wings and thus it needed a wing redesign. As a result it gained bigger wings with squared off wing tips.

These aircraft mainly saw use against Japanese targets during World War 2 and were used until 1949 with the National Guard.

The Decals

Subject: P-47N – Last of the Breed Pt I

Manufacturer: AeroMaster

Scale: 1/48

Contents: 1 decal sheet, with markings for 3 aircraft

Serial: 48-356

Price:7 EUR – 10 USD

Personal rating: ✭✭✭✭✭ ✭✭✭✭✭

The markings
This decal sheet provides the builder with three markings. These are all wartime paint schemes from the Pacific theater and all sport different types of nose art and tail colors. The first aircraft features a pin up girl and a blue tail, while the second sports two types of cartoons with a yellow and black lined tail and the last one sports a name on one side of the engine cover and a cartoon on the other with black tipped horizontal and vertical stabilizers.

The first aircraft is part of the 413th Fighter Group, which was part of the 21st Fighter Squadron during 1945, based at Okinawa. The squadron was activated in October 1944 to provide B-29 bomber with P-47N escort fighters based at Le Shima and started by engaging factories, radar stations and other targets. It only flew one escort mission and the unit was eventually inactivated in 1946, but reactivated in 1954.

The P-47N on the decal sheet is serial number 44-88835. It was flown by Pilot Don Stuck and is aluminium with painted olive drab anti-glare panels and a blue tail. On the engine cover there is a pin-up. For the people who are more acquainted with P-47N’s will probably recognize this pin-up from P-47N 44-88020 ‘Red-E-Ruth’ from the 19th Fighter Squadron. This pin up is however not accompanied by any name or text like ‘Red-E-Ruth’.

Even more so, the only picture I could find of this aircraft was however accompanied with ‘miss’ below it. This is not represented with the decal sheet so I do have some doubts about the accuracy of this paint scheme but aside this little detail, it seems quite accurate.

The second and third aircraft are both part of the 73rd Fighter Squadron, based under the 318th Fighter Group in the Pacific theatre.

The second aircraft, serial 44-87916 and nicknamed ‘kay-n-tucky’, met it’s end when crashing at Okinawa on 31st of October, 1945. According to this product, the pilot is not known, but various accident reports a certain ‘Dean, George L‘, while the single photo I came across stated a certain ‘Maj. McCown‘. Examining that same photo shows us that Aeromaster did a pretty good job on getting the markings right. One thing that should be noted is that the two smaller antennas on the empennage seem to be absent. Isn’t it nice when accuracy means doing less hard stuff?

The last aircraft, serial 44-87946 and nicknamed little Joe, was flown by Lt. Joe Cecci. It was also written off during a landing accident at Yontan, Japan during June 1945. This was the only aircraft that I did not find any photographic evidence on or any other info.

The decalsThe decals were designed to be used with the Minicraft and Monogram kits. I used them with the Academy kit and this did not pose any problem, as this is most likely a rebox from the Minicraft kit. The decals are of very good quality and silvering seems to be minimal. The designs are very detailed and some of the cartoons are divided into two decals, one being the outlines while the others represent the colors. On the decal sheet it states that the decals are printed in the USA.

As mentioned before I used the decals on my Academy kit. The usage of the decals went without any problem, although I had to be more careful than other times. This because the decals were very thin and were very adhesive. This was also good because therefore the decals settled very well once placed. I didn’t need any sort of decal setting liquid to make the decals form into the panel lines. To be honest, the only thing I did change was to cut the large ‘DHS’ into three different decals, instead of one large decal.

If you wish to see how they look on the model, I’d like to refer you to the P-47N I have build, which as always you can adore in the completed works section (coming soon).

The conclusion
These are some very cool decals and are great addition for anybody wanting to ‘spice up’ his P-47N aircraft, as the markings of a few kits are a bit ‘dull’. I you like war machines that are a embellished, this is definitely a good choice. The only real downside is that I couldn’t find any photographic evidence of the aircraft ‘Little Joe’ and photographs of the first aircraft seemed to indicate that text should be added or other details.

When applying the decals it became clear that they were of good quality, showing few silvering on the Alclad finishes. They went down smoothly with few problems and settled really nice in the panel lines without the use of any other products. A bit of work was needed to streak them down smoothly but they didn’t work against me at all.

As they were designed for the Minecraft (/Academy) kit, it did not pose any problem at all for the usage on an academy kit. I can say that these decals are surely recommended for any modeler, although they might pose a challenge for someone who has never handled decals before.

If you wish to see what these decals can be build into, you can check them out on my build up Academy 1/48 P-47N in the completed section.